'US Congress to pass ROZs bill in a couple of days'

The bill regarding reconstruction of opportunity zones (ROZs) will be passed by the US Congress in the next two to three days, which will usher in a new era of development in northern areas, said Advisor to PM on Finance Shaukat Tarin.
Talking with newsmen at a seminar on 'Islamic Banking in Pakistan', organised by Rotary Club, Karachi Karsaz, at a hotel here on Saturday, he said that the government would conduct a survey of destruction in FATA and northern areas, especially Swat.
He said that IMF was satisfied with Pakistan's progress on its conditionalities and agreed that interest rates could be reduced when inflation rate should decline. He said that Pakistan would urge 'Friends of Pakistan' to discuss investment in projects of energy and water resource development, poverty alleviation, and skill development.
He said that investment in these projects would boost the country's economy and generate employment. Tarin said that wheat procurement target would be achieved to ensure sufficient stock of the food grain. He said that fears about shortage of funds for wheat procurement were baseless as "the banking system has sufficient liquidity".
He said: "This year we will get a bumper crop of wheat, which would be some 25 million tons, and would be enough for Pakistan and Afghanistan." The high support price would help to achieve the government's wheat procurement target easily, he added. At the seminar, he asked Islamic banks to bring the billions of rupees into formal banking, which are kept by the people on religious grounds.
Billions of rupees of the people are kept with them, as they do not want to deposit them in interest bearing non-Islamic banking system. Islamic banks need to tap this money and convince these people that this is Shariah-based banking system and they should invest their money into this system, he added.
The advisor said that this huge amount can be brought in for productive purpose and channelised into profit and loss based system of banking. Earlier, Tarin and Director Pervaiz Saeed said that Islamic banking was the banking and conventional banking was merely money lending. Tariq Hussain of Emirates Global also spoke on the occasion.